Humans played the very first instruments thousands of years ago — 42,000 or 43,000 years ago, to be as exact as possible. The oldest known instruments are flutes carved from bird bone and mammoth ...

An exhibition at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix features some of China's earliest known musical instruments, the oldest dating from 7,000 to 9,000 years ago. Experts analyzing instruments in ...

When a hootenanny struck up 3,000—or 30,000—years ago, no recording engineer was there to capture what went down. Can anyone know, then, what ancient instruments like the aulos and carnyx really ...

Visitors look at musical instruments during an exhibition themed on various music cultures along the ancient Silk Road at Guangzhou Maritime Museum in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, Nov.

With his intense gaze fixed and his fingers poised above the strings of the zhongruan, he appeared to absorb the room's energy before releasing it in a single, sweeping gesture. The opening note hung ...

Casually, like well-bred amateurs, the ten musicians adjusted lights and music racks, then began to play Handel’s Concerto Grosso in G Major. There was nothing casual, nothing amateurish about their ...

When researchers in China discovered a series of tombs and horse burials, they saw that the archaeological site had been pillaged. One tomb, a large construction in the shape of the letter “A,” likely ...

The ASTRA project, standing for Ancient instruments Sound/Timbre Reconstruction Application, has revived an instrument that hasn't been played or heard in centuries. Using the Enabling Grids for ...

A handful of unnaturally elongated stones sat on display at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve museum for decades with no one ever knowing exactly what they were. Many were too big and ...

When Rene Jenkins blows into his digeridoo, all senses are trained on him. Sounding a deep and resonant timbre, he moves through a group with the silent agility of a wild cat, producing a cadence as ...

Imagine some of the world's most treasured, renowned instruments all in one room. Muse no longer. The Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix will open its newest exhibition, "Treasures: Legendary ...